The Jack Stewart Scholarship Fund at the Yale School of Art will provide financial aid support for graduate students helping the most promising artists to enroll at Yale and pursue their passion upon graduation unburdened by debt.

The gift intention of $1,000,000 is established by his wife, the artist Regina Serniak Stewart. Mrs. Stewart understood the profound influence his studies at Yale had made on Jack’s life, and wanted to honor his memory by allowing other aspiring artists the opportunity to attend Yale.

In a letter from Stewart to his mother dated September 6, 1946, he wrote: “Mother you can’t imagine what it’s like living everyday with artists. To talk, work, and think along the same lines. To be with people who feel and see the beauty about them and don’t hesitate to express that feeling…” Stewart had used the G.I. bill to attend Yale following his service in the army during World War II.

“Jack Stewart was an artist, academic, and educator,” said Marta Kuzma, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean of the Yale School of Art. “His commitment to teaching and research alongside a concurrent and engaged artistic practice encapsulate the School’s belief that artists hold the power to engage with the communities in which we all live and work at the local, national, and international level.” Dean Kuzma continued that “it is particularly meaningful that this major bequest will support financial aid. I know that recipients of the Jack Stewart Scholarship will take great pride knowing that their funding was provided in memory of an artist, a teacher, and a School of Art alumnus.”

Financial aid is a critical priority for the School of Art and it is grateful to Regina Stewart for her major memorial bequest. Stewart’s bequest builds upon a 2018 gift to the School of Art from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation which created a Helen Frankenthaler Endowed Scholarship Fund. Together, these scholarships constitute meaningful form of intergenerational support from artists for artists.

In 2018–2019, 71 percent of Yale School of Art graduate students received need-based financial aid. As the School celebrates its 150th Anniversary, it aspires to expand its financial aid program to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all its students. The Jack Stewart Endowment provides significant momentum toward this goal while contributing toward school-wide initiatives that foster critical and collective consciousness around social engagement and civic dialogue. The bequest thus furthers the School of Art’s efforts to help graduate students negotiate art production amid current conditions of social and economic inequality.

ABOUT JACK STEWART

Jack Stewart, Ph.D. (1926-2005) was a painter, muralist, designer, educator, administrator, and art historian. Stewart was born in Atlanta and served in the Army during World War II. Stewart went on to earn a BFA degree from Yale University in 1951 where he studied at the School of Art with Josef Albers and William de Kooning. At Yale, Stewart developed a passion for murals that led him subsequently to study architecture at Columbia University. These passions eventually cultivated an interest in graffiti which Stewart pursued through graduate study and research at New York University (M.A., 1975 and Ph.D., 1989).

Stewart was a lifelong artist and academic who’s work can be found in the permanent collection of numerous museums including the Yale University Art Gallery, New-York Historical Society, The Gray Art Gallery Fine Arts Museum of New York University, Morris Museum of Art of Augusta, GA, Ogden Museum of New Orleans, LA, Lowe Art Museum at University of Miami, The Experience Music Project Museum, The Museum of the Savannah College of Art and Design, The Museum of the City of New York, and the National Academy Museum. Stewart’s academic accomplishments included the definitive study of Subway Graffiti, Subway Graffiti: An Aesthetic Study Of Graffiti On The Subway System Of New York City, 1970-1978 (New York University, 1989) and in 2009 Abrams published a reorganization of the study titled Graffiti Kings: New York City Mass Transit Art of the 1970s.

Stewart was a lifelong teacher and served as an instructor for college level coursework throughout his career. He taught classes at The New School and the Pratt Institute, served as Chairman of the art departments of Cooper Union and Indiana State University, and would eventually hold the position of Provost and Vice President at the Rhode Island School of Design. Stewart was an academician of the National Academy of Design and a past president of the Artist Welfare Fund, New York Artist Equity Association, National Society of Mural Painters, and Fine Arts Federation of New York.

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“Major bequest to establish scholarship fund at the Yale School of Art” published on Yale News, March 19, 2020

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